18th Century posts

One of the things I find most rewarding about being a curator is seeing objects through other people’s eyes. This came home to me when looking at William Hoare’s portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo with the Booker-prize-winning writer Ben Okri. …

This article is an extract from the exclusive Gallery Supporters’ magazine Face to Face. There is often a price paid for brilliance, and in this portrait of Dr Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds forces us to reflect on what the nature of that price might be.…

What does it mean to be a hero? Working for a gallery that celebrates individual achievement means that we often come across surprising life stories. For me, however, few are as inspiring as that of the Chevalier D’Eon and it was exciting to work on the acquisition of his portrait for the Collection. In the eighteenth century, homosexuality was punishable by death, there was no understanding of transsexuality and men who dressed in women’s clothing were viciously persecuted. Yet despite such oppression, D’Eon managed to forge two very successful careers: firstly as a man, working as a soldier, diplomat and spy, and then as a woman.…

How much control do we have over our images? When we view a portrait, do we expect it to depict someone as they are or as they’d like to be? Would you feel differently if it was a portrait of you? These questions struck me when I was looking at William Hoare’s portrait of Alexander Pope for our new display, The Art of Drawing: Portraits from the collection, 1670-1850. …

I have been fascinated by the eighteenth-century British radical Thomas Hollis ever since I came across his diary in the Houghton Library, America. It was very exciting, therefore, that one of my first projects at the National Portrait Gallery was helping with fundraising to buy a marble bust of Hollis by Joseph Wilton. If Hollis’s name isn’t familiar to you, it’s probably what he would have wanted: he preferred to be anonymous. Despite this reticence, the diary reveals a man who was tireless in attacking political corruption and defending civil liberties. …